Richards says it "may have had something to do with the gambling den that Nellcôte turned into-there were card games and roulette wheels." "Monte Carlo was around the corner."Īnd Jagger thinks "It's obviously the most accessible and commercial song on.HOLLYWOOD, FLA. - As it turns out, you can sometimes get what you want. Still, how "Good Time Woman" became "Tumbling Dice" is unclear. Among the demos and incomplete tracks he found in Bermondsey was "Good Time Woman." He transferred them to cassette and brought them to the villa. During a visit to Bermondsey before the Stones left for France, Trevor Churchhill, the European label manager for Rolling Stones Records notices a pile of tapes in the corner. The Rolling Stones had a rehearsal studio there for a few years prior to 1971. In South East London there is a district called Bermondsey. That was the inspiration.īut if the history of "Good Time Women" ended in "Tumbling Dice" at Keith's villa, it did not begin there. I asked my housekeeper if she played dice. I'd heard gamblers in casinos shouting it out. I didn't know anything about dice playing but I knew lots of jargon used by dice players. Later I got the title in my head, "call me the tumbling dice," so I had the theme for it. It was quite fast and sounded great but I wasn't happy with the lyrics. "We had it down as a completed song called 'Good Time Women,'" continues Jagger, and "It started out with a great riff from Keith," says Mick Jagger in an interview with The Sun in 2010. "I credit Mick with 'Tumbling Dice,' but the song had to make a transition from its earlier form, which was a song called 'Good Time Women.'" "I remember working on that intro for several afternoons," says Richards. Ignore intelligence, ignore everything just follow it where it takes you." The skill is not to interfere with it too much. "You're just being led by the nose, or the ears. "Great songs write themselves," he continues. In his autobiography, Life (2010), Richards, who led the scene at the villa, says that it "took a few days to get right." "I'd have been happier if more came like 'Happy,'" comments Richards. "Happy" was written and recorded there in an afternoon. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a productive environment for songwriting. "It was an unparalleled cast of characters." "No one had a last name, you didn't know who anybody was," he continues. "People appeared, disappeared," said Robert Greenfield who was there to interview Richards for Rolling Stone. Moreover, Andy Johns, who made the Nellcôte tapes in a mobile studio outside of the villa, said the "heating vents on the floor were gold swastikas." Richards told Johns that the villa "had been a Gestapo headquarters during the war."ĭuring their exile at the villa, the scene was chaotic. "The roof leaked," continued Taylor, "and there were power failures."
"It's got a raw sound quality, and the reason for that is that the basement was very dingy and very damp," said Mick Taylor, who played lead guitar for the Stones from 1969 to 1974. (1972), and the conditions of its composition have become the subject of rock lore. The album that resulted from his "being told to leave the country," Exile on Main St. "So that's the same as being told to leave the country." "The tax rate in the early '70s on the highest earners was eighty-three percent, and that went up to ninety-eight percent for investments and so-called unearned income," says Richards in his autobiography, Life (2010). Keith Richards rented this French villa to avoid payment on the high income tax back in England. Relaxing and recording in this 1854 French villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer on the Côte D'Azur in 1971, the Rolling Stones were in tax exile. These famous words found their way into the musty basement of the Villa Nellcôte. You got to roll me and call me the tumbling dice.